Tai Po Hui Market and Cooked Food Centre

What an experience! Totally crowded lots of people, and tables. Walk around, see what you like, sit down and order your food. They will deliver it to your table. Cheap eats and no service… must say I was disappointed but we had 3 adults and4 kids. Wasn’t able to try everything I wanted. But I got to experience it… nothing like that in the States. Had crispy fish skin, pretty good, beef tendon over rice, too salty. Fried rice dish and beef stew noodles. Was ok, nothing stood out except for the fish skin but I got what I wanted… was to experience Hong Kong’s dai pai dong.

The main square in Tai Po Market is littered with loads of family-​owned restaurants, serving amazing beef brisket, goose, tofu desserts — to name a few delicacies. However, the indoor market’s cooked food centre is another gem altogether. Before the huge complex that houses Tai Po’s library and sports center was set up, a humble wet market with stalls occupied the area. Since then, it has been turned into an indoor market on the ground floor, and just two floors above you have a huge seating area with lots of little vendors that can cook anything you bought downstairs, or go by the menu.
It’s nothing fancy, by any stretch of the imagination — plastic stools, foldable tables, crowds, wet floors. In this less-​than-​grandeur setting, the emphasis is totally placed on the food, and even with that pressure the dishes thrive. Even Anthony Bourdain has waxed lyrical about the noodles served here, but one must also try the stone pot dishes with chicken, as well as the salt and pepper squid.
A few more dishes such as steamed crab with glutinous rice, or black bean razorclams, won’t set you back much — and you can make your dinner slightly cheaper by buying the seafood yourself in the indoor market on the ground floor, and just paying for a cooking fee. I suppose you are also safer buying your own seafood — if you know how to pick the fresh fish (tip: glassy eyes, and doesn’t smell fishy). I must say I had the misfortune of getting a little upset stomach one time — one time! — in my many quick bites here from some crab roe, but this hasn’t deterred me.